I was in the middle of a very important experiment when the call came. I was attempting, for the fifth time that cycle, to walk like something that had ever heard of knees.
It wasn't going well.
There's a special kind of indignity in falling over when you don't technically have bones. I flopped sideways like a dropped ribbon, rebounded with something approximating grace, and promptly tangled my own arms trying to stand up. Again.
"Progress," I muttered aloud, if internal monologue can count as muttering. "Statistically speaking, in that statistically my number of attempts has gone up by one."
My limbs were mid-cartwheel, body flung out in a helix of elegant disaster, when the world—or whatever qualified as a world in this featureless half-realm—tilted.
Not physically. Metaphysically. It felt like someone far away had suddenly thought very hard about where I should be, and in doing so, tugged on a string I didn't know I had. Not quite pain. Not pressure. But presence. An impression of authority.
It was an order, though it didn't come with words. A command that echoed in the space where a heart might have been kept, if we were Somebody instead of Nobody.
Come.
Around me, other Dusks—slender, white-limbed things like myself, but so much less there, mentally speaking—twitched in unison. One by one, they vanished into dark spirals, portals ripping open and sucking them away. No hesitation. No resistance. They were summoned, and so they went.
I, of course, did not vanish.
There was no reason not to go. That was the strange part. No resistance curled in my chest. No rebellion sparked in my hollow core. I simply… didn't move. Not because I was defying anything, but because I wasn't entirely sure if I felt like answering.
The command had tried to impose itself on me.
It hadn't succeeded.
Which in itself could be described as interesting.
"So, that's new," I said to another dusk, watching as they spiraled out of existence. "Apparently I'm optional."
I didn't know who was calling—just that they were high in the unseen hierarchy. Someone powerful. Someone used to getting what they wanted just by wanting it.
I suspected they didn't actually know how many Dusks would answer. Probably didn't care. It felt more like scattering breadcrumbs into a void and assuming some of the birds would peck their way over. No one notices the birds that don't.
Except this bird was self-aware, and it had developed a habit of thinking too much.
"I should ignore it," I mused aloud, or rather, inwardly. "Make a statement. Assert independence. Practice rebellion."
I sat down, cross-limbed, limbs looping casually beneath me. Adopted what I imagined was a philosophical pose. Nothing happened. The command still echoed faintly, but there was no pressure. No follow-up. No cosmic finger wagging. Just the open-ended certainty that I was wanted somewhere else.
Was that… insulting?
"I don't even get a second ping?" I muttered. "Not even a 'You up?' Just a one-time metaphysical tug across reality and hope for the best."
I wondered if I could do the same, picking up the phone and calling someone else. But no. I had no friends, who would I even call?
Having well considered the dilemma of metaphysical phone books, I stood up.
I could stay here and continue pretending I had working knees.
Or I could go somewhere new. Do something else. See what all the obedient Dusks were doing. Maybe learn a few things. Maybe get existentially flattened by some comparatively all-powerful being.
Naturally, instead of continuing to prove my mastery of the tibiofemoral joint compared to my fellows, I looked up—figuratively, given the non-space nature of this place—and considered the problem of direction. If I was going to go, I might as well go impressively.
Stretching my fingers outward, I reached into the dark space around me and pulled. Not with muscle—those were optional—but with will. A thing I apparently had. A thing I chose to use.
The darkness obeyed.
It wasn't quite deliberate; more like following a muscle memory I didn't remember having. Which I guessed made sense if the other simpler minded nobodies could do it. A jagged, spidery seam tore open before me. A corridor of darkness, not unlike the ones the others had slipped into.
It shimmered at the edges, flickering as it reeked faintly of ozone and cosmic sarcasm.
Wobbled a little.
I stared at it for a long moment, half-expecting it to vanish or collapse in on itself, then gave it a sympathetic wobble back. Seemed only fair.
Finally, with a shrug of metaphorical shoulders, I stepped through.
The darkness was cold, but strangely, not empty. Conceptually speaking, of course, full of arcane philosophical musings. There wasn't a single physical thing in my corridor but me and I had the feeling it would be dangerous for anything that actually existed to be in here.
Thankfully, with no heart to corrupt and questionable existence, it was just a speedy means for me travel. I felt myself slide sideways through reality, and then—
Light.
The room I landed in was cold.
Not physically—I had no nerves to judge temperature—but aesthetically. Cold like polished metal and unsympathetic math. The walls glowed faintly blue, backlit by veins of flickering light embedded in seamless panels. Devices I didn't recognize hummed with clinical disinterest. Empty stasis pods lined one wall, each like a coffin that hadn't decided what body to hold yet.
My entrance was less "graceful arrival" and more "sentient linguine dropped onto a sterile floor."
I lay there for a beat, wondering if other Nobodies had this kind of issue, then rolled over with something that might have resembled dignity if seen in bad lighting from very, very, far away.
I had stumbled out into the air of a place that reeked of power and secrets and, as if in greeting, the World presented its name to me:
I had arrived in The World That Never Was.
A place named after not existing. So naturally, I felt right at home. Should I say 'Nobody's Home'? No, better save that one for later.
A handful of other Dusks were already there, clustered motionlessly near the walls. They didn't twitch. Didn't tilt their heads. Just hovered like oddly melancholic coat racks, waiting for whatever purpose had yanked them here.
"Fashionably late again," I muttered. "Classic me."
"Fascinating," said a voice. "It speaks of its own accord."
The speaker stepped into view from behind a translucent wall, long black coat trailing behind him. He moved with the precise stiffness of someone who had never tripped in public and would rather die than admit if he had.
I didn't recognize him, but I still felt the fading tug. This was the source of the call.
And I had chosen to answer.
Tall. Thin. Blond. Sharp-featured and with piercing, brilliant green eyes. His expression suggested he'd just discovered someone had spilled theoretical soup on his research notes and I was the only one around to take the blame.
"Subject appears to retain some manner of internal cognition," he murmured, mostly to himself. "Language capacity intact. Spontaneous commentary—likely indicative of a malformed directive hierarchy. Or perhaps… a lingering Will?"
He leaned in slightly, peering at me through gleaming lenses, his expression a mixture of irritation and interest. Which was potentially interesting to me, as I was fairly sure this man had no heart and therefore should not be able to feel. Perhaps he was just very good at pretending.
"You took longer to arrive than expected. Most Dusks respond within moments."
I wobbled a little, purely for effect. "I got lost. Gravity and I are still negotiating terms."
He blinked, slowly, seemingly recalibrating his expectations. "How curious. A Dusk with excuses."
"Technically," I offered, "I'm just contextually verbose."
He straightened, face back towards his . "You're also aware of contextual nuance."
I shrugged—inasmuch as I could, given the shoulder situation. "Somewhat. Enough to know I don't usually get invited to labs like this unless someone's about to poke me with something unpleasant."
"Excellent," he said, clasping his hands. "That means you can follow basic instructions. Stand. Face me."
He gestured absently at the other Dusks, and they obeyed without hesitation—one stood so straight it hovered on its tippy… spindly toe.
I also stood tall, albeit sideways, and with a full-body undulation that felt more interpretive dance than military precision.
"You're being difficult."
"I call it 'expressive compliance,'" I said. "Very avant-garde."
He made a noise halfway between a sigh and a snort, then gestured for me to follow, leaving the other dusks standing at attention. I slinked after him, limbs curling and flexing over the polished floor.
"Typical Dusks," he said, more to the clipboard in his hand than to me, "can comprehend verbal instructions, even carry out simple multi-stage operations when commanded—fetch this, attack that, then guard here. A basic form of procedural intelligence."
He paused, adjusting his glasses with a flick.
"But show them a puppet and a person wearing a costume of the same, and they'll try to follow both as if they're identical. No distinction. No understanding of context. Your kind fails every test of abstraction."
"And yet, you deliberately misinterpreted orders. You continue to sass me, despite the fact you must know our apparent power difference. Are you not afraid of being destroyed for disobeying me?"
I tilted my head slightly. "I have no heart, you see. Let alone glands. Fear is a hormone-triggered impulse, and I wasn't issued the hardware, let alone the software. Inability to feel is part of the package."
A thoughtful pause.
"Besides, if you were going to destroy me, I assume you'd have already done it. Or at least prepared a speech."
The man blinked. Once.
"Most curious indeed," he murmured.
The lab spread out ahead like a science museum designed by someone who hated comfort. Pods. Platforms. Monitors. Suspended tanks filled with light and vague shapes.
He stopped beside one pod in particular.
"This," he said, gesturing toward a large vertical capsule with a softly glowing form inside, "is a memory shell."
I tilted my head. "You've got someone in a glowing soda bottle. Interesting choice of décor."
"It is a construct assembled from fragments of memory extracted from discarded hearts," he said. "Encoded onto a template built from synthetic matter and reinforced with programmed instincts. When I am finally able to perfect these replica bodies, they will be able to act as perfect vessels for Hearts."
I nodded slowly. "So… you want to make an emotionally haunted action figure."
He didn't dignify that with a response. That was okay, I was fairly certain I would be proud of that statement anyway.
"Memory," he continued, "is the anchor of selfhood. This shell remembers enough to move, to speak, perhaps even to mimic—but it lacks the structural stability of a full personality. Most break down. Some lash out. All are unstable."
"Sounds like social media."
His eye twitched. Just a little.
"I require a control element," he said. "Something lesser. Something that will follow basic instructions and intervene if the shell destabilizes while I monitor the readouts and take notes. Normally I'd use a standard Dusk. Disposable. Somewhat instinct-driven. But you…"
He looked me over like I was a faulty toaster with aspirations.
"You are anomalous. But tractable enough. You'll suffice."
"I can disobey, you know."
He smiled, thin and glacial. "Yes. That's what makes it interesting."
Before I could say anything else, the tank hissed. Vents released slow spirals of fog as the capsule lit up brighter. The shape inside began to shift.
"Remain nearby," he said. "Do not interfere—unless your instincts prove stronger than mine."
I hovered a few feet back. The shell flickered, the form inside twitching slightly.
It was human-shaped. More or less. But… indistinct. Like the memory wasn't finished rendering. Its features were vague, hair color undefined. Its arms trembled as though trying to remember how elbows worked.
I recognized that struggle.
It opened its mouth.
"...I... am..."
The voice was cracked, like static trying to speak through a broken speaker. Its head twitched to the side. Fingers curled, then spasmed.
"...where...?"
"Stable," The man said, adjusting something on a nearby panel. "Vital streams steady. Memory cohesion at sixty-two percent. Lucidity fluctuating."
"...no... no, no—this... not mine—"
The shell's hand jerked outward, striking the glass with a clang. Darkness spread along the surface like ink dropped in water.
"Cohesion down to thirty-one percent," he called, voice sharpening. "Restraints not engaging. React if needed, Dusk."
The shell turned its head—saw me.
And screamed.
Not a sound. Not a roar. But a visceral psychic pressure that reverberated through the room, feeling like someone yelling through a dream made of broken mirrors. It lunged. The pod burst open with a hiss of steam and shadow.
And I moved.
Not because he said to. Not because I had to.
But because I recognized their pain.
Because some part of me—whatever weird little fragment of identity that gave me autonomy and witty one-sided banter—refused to let it collapse into nothing.
Because in a world where I could be anything, I chose to be kind.
I surged forward and wrapped my arms around the shell, noodle-limbs encircling its torso and myself several times, like the strange sentient scarf thing I was. I could feel myself almost burning at the edges with the intensity of the darkness they were putting out.
"Easy, there," I muttered softly to it. "This isn't your scene. You're glitching, but it's going to be okay. Let's pause the horror show for now."
The shell thrashed. Cried out. Twitched and spasmed—but I held on, twisting myself into knots as all my limbs wrapped around us again and again. Slowly, the energy pulsing from it dimmed. Not completely. But enough for it to collapse against me, unconscious or near enough.
The man looked… intrigued.
"You're surprisingly efficient," he said. "Unexpectedly effective restraint. Adaptable."
I gently set the shell down, flexing my fingers and noting the blurry edges.
"If I had feelings," I said, "I'd be proud. Or shaken. Maybe both."
He leaned closer, eyes gleaming. "What are you?"
I thought for a moment.
"Nobody."
The silence that followed the containment of the memory shell was heavy—weighted with analysis rather than awe. The man stepped closer, peering at the unconscious figure wrapped in my noodle-limbs with the kind of academic intensity normally reserved for deadly rare bacteria or unstable elements.
I loosened my grip and allowed the shell to slump to the floor completely. It twitched once, then stilled.
"You are more effective than I expected," He said at last, hands clasped behind his back. "I had rather forgotten that your kind even had fingers. I will allow you to assist me again, in the future."
I straightened up—or, well, unfolded into something upright-adjacent. "I'll take that as a compliment. In whatever lab-coded dialect you speak."
He didn't rise to the bait. He never did. I was beginning to suspect, even among nobodies, his emotional range started and ended with the phrase statistically significant.
"I am currently devoting the majority of my resources," he said, "to the perfection of replica technology. The memory shell you just restrained is among my most stable attempts yet. A breakthrough is close. I can feel it."
"Figuratively," I offered helpfully. "Because of the no-heart situation."
He ignored me, which I assumed meant I was correct.
"...And to that end," he continued, "I require data from beyond this facility. Observations. Evidence. Samples. Encounters. Anything that might shed light on replication, mimicry, or false identities."
"Right," I said. "So I'm freelance grunt labor now. Promotion achieved."
He turned his gaze toward me, expression unreadable. "Consider it field research. You are anomalous, but functional. Self-propelled. Inexplicably verbose. But you obeyed when it mattered."
"Eh," I said. "I mostly didn't want to watch the kid implode. Might've been messy."
"Whatever your motivations," he said, tone cool, "they were effective. That's sufficient."
He stepped to a console and pressed something. A small platform lit up beside me—flat, circular, glowing faintly blue. On it sat what looked like a crystal shard, floating just above the surface, humming with restrained energy. I didn't need instructions. It called to me.
"A Magic Element," he said. "Basic. Low-grade. It will imprint on your form. Embed itself into your pattern and distribute the appropriate magical instincts."
I tilted my head. "So I'm getting a wizard upgrade."
"You are receiving a tool," he said, sharply. "Try not to anthropomorphize everything."
I reached out, half expecting the shard to reject me, explode, or deliver some deeply inconvenient existential revelation. Instead, it simply shimmered—then surged forward, piercing my chest like a spear of liquid lightning.
I didn't flinch. No pain. No nerves to trigger. Just a sensation of becoming.
The crystal dissolved into light, sinking into me. And then…
Knowledge. Not thoughts. Not memories. But reflexes.
How to gather energy at my fingertips. How to twist the ambient magic of the world into form. How to cast. I flexed one arm outward, felt a spark tickle across my palm—a faint, glowing orb of fire that shimmered into smoke after a second.
I stared at my fingers.
"Well," I said, "that's new."
"A simple spell," he responded blithely. "Fire, weak. But useful in emergencies. Others may manifest over time. I expect reports. Preferably useful ones."
I gave him a two-finger salute. "Understood. Report interesting clone-related phenomena. Avoid spontaneous combustion. Don't anthropomorphize anything unless it gets mouthy first."
His mouth twitched—just slightly. Not a smile. Not even amusement. Just… acknowledgement. And then he turned away, already lost in calculations.
I lingered.
Maybe I should've asked for a name. Or a designation. Or an insurance policy. But something told me that any strings attached would be of the suffocating kind. Better to be what I already was: a Nobody with no job title, no mission parameters, and no leash.
"Beware your apparent autonomy, little dusk," the man noted abruptly, without turning, "or you'll make enemies. Even among us Nobodies."
I didn't answer. Not out of defiance, but because I was too busy processing that particular nugget of wisdom. It wasn't a threat, not really. It was a truth.
The more I chose, the more I moved of my own will, the more I stood out. And standing out meant becoming visible. Becoming a target. Of Interest. Or displeasure.
And I wasn't nearly powerful enough to handle that kind of attention.
Yet.
I turned toward the far end of the lab, where a clean section of wall shimmered with the latent potential of blank space and flexed my Will.
This time, I wasn't being summoned.
The shadows responded anyway.
My fingers curled inward, and the air bent. Not elegantly. Not smoothly. But with effort. A jagged, shimmering seam opened before me—twisting faintly at the edges. The corridor pulsed in time with no heartbeat at all.
It was mine.
And it was hideous.
I took a step forward, then paused at the threshold. No farewell. No fanfare. Just the cold hum of machinery behind me and the hiss of power barely contained.
I turned my head—well, my hood—back toward the figure, though he didn't look up.
"Hey," I called. "Thanks for the promotion."
No response, but that was okay. I could feel the faintest thread connecting us now. I could attempt to provoke a reaction out of him later.
With a shrug and a flick of newly magic-charged fingers, I stepped into the corridor and Darkness welcomed me once more.
It was cold. Familiar. Twisting. But this time, it felt different. I wasn't just being pulled towards a direction. Perhaps I should have been more clear on where exactly I wanted to go?
The corridor flexed around me—shifting in time with my will, like it wasn't quite used to being used this way. But it held.
I drifted forward, limbs trailing behind me like cosmic streamers, and let my thoughts wander.
I had magic now. A job of sorts. Orders to chase down copies and echoes and haunted mannequins.
I had knowledge I didn't earn. Power I didn't ask for. And an awareness I definitely shouldn't have.
I wasn't even a proper Dusk, according to the man.
But I was moving, and if my long, probably at least 27 minutes of non-existence, had taught me anything: life was all about momentum.
So, wherever I landed next, I'd deal with it.
And as I approached my destination, I realized I hadn't even asked the man's name.
Oh well.